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Niel Widy (Indie Developer, Andromeda Entertainment)
Location: Room 209, South Hall
Date: Monday, March 20
Time: 2:10 pm - 2:40 pm
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Summits Pass
Topic: VR/AR
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: Video
Audience Level: All
When Niel Widy began working on SolarBlack at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was little more than a dream. Something to occupy the newly available at-home time between his full-time job and something that could tie his other passions of creating art, music, and programming into a sort of COVID opus. Two years later, SolarBlack has launched globally on multiple major platforms, and has found backing from a VR publisher.
In this talk, Niel shares what that two-year journey looked like for him as a teacher in Austria. He will discuss the skills that helped him find success with SolarBlack—even those he didn't possess—as well as what went right, what went wrong, and lots of things he wishes someone had told him before he started.
Attendees will learn: time savers, tips, and best practices (e.g. VR testing best practices; estimating timelines; general VR standalone porting timelines; planning and project management for small teams in an agile environment.
This is for anyone interested in developing games for VR—either those already working in games and looking to pivot into VR or those just starting on their game dev journey and interested in the skills needed for developing for this medium. Lastly, anyone looking to balance working on games as a hobby with other aspects of life will find the tips from this talk useful.